Fast food chains are using apps to speed customers through checkout and drive sales higher

Fast food chains — dubbed Quick Service Restaurants — have started embracing apps that let customers order ahead of time and pick up in-store. In part, it's about convenience but it's also about helping these retailers drive revenues higher.

Recently, Taco Bell launched a mobile order-ahead app that allows customers to purchase food from the app and pick it up without waiting in line. The app has seen significant early success — with higher average order sales boosting total revenues.

In this in-depth research from BI Intelligence, we look at how fast-food chains are leveraging mobile order-ahead to attract more customers, intensify loyalty, ease payment friction, and drive additional incremental revenues.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Quick-service restaurants are increasingly offering mobile order-ahead apps that allow consumers to make orders remotely and pick up what they've ordered in store. The apps offer consumers convenience and retailers the opportunity to drive higher revenues.

Taco Bell's early success with its order-ahead app gives other chains a blueprint for launching these apps. Taco Bell recently launched a mobile order-ahead app that has been downloaded 2 million times in the first four months, and 3 out of 4 Taco Bell chains processed a mobile order on the app's first day. Other chains with these apps include Pizza Hut and Chipotle.

Mobile order-ahead can drive higher average order values. Taco Bell's app orders are 20% higher on average compared to in-store because consumers are more likely to add toppings to their orders or send in group orders via the app.

Other types of apps have already shown success within the food and beverage industry. Seamless/GrubHub has already had phenomenal success in the $9 billion online ordering market. And the Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts mobile in-store payments apps have proven that consumers will use their phones for brick-and-mortar purchases given attractive incentives like loyalty programs.

While mobile order-ahead offers a substantial opportunity to restaurants, it also comes with risks. A successful mobile order-ahead program could have a substantial impact on the dynamics of a brick-and-mortar restaurant's operations. If order flow is not managed properly, this could create an unpleasant in-store experience and reduced sales.

In full, the report:

Charts out the total US sales of quick-service restaurants to quantify the mobile ordering opportunity

Conducts a case study of Taco Bell's mobile order-ahead app, including an analysis of its average order values on both mobile and in-store

Provides overviews of the other QSRs venturing into mobile ordering along with its predecessors

Identifies the risks associated with implementing a mobile ordering program

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally.»Learn More Now

Our BI Intelligence INSIDER Newsletters are currently read by thousands of business professionals first thing every morning. Fortune 1000 companies, startups, digital agencies, investment firms, and media conglomerates rely on these newsletters to keep atop the key trends shaping their digital landscape — whether it is mobile, digital media, e-commerce, payments, or the Internet of Things.

Our subscribers consider the INSIDER Newsletters a "daily must-read industry snapshot" and "the edge needed to succeed personally and professionally" — just to pick a few highlights from our recent customer survey.